Like many on the left, the election result came as a nasty shock to JONATHAN TIMBERS. Yet despite the desperate outlook, he believes a future Labour government is possible if the party becomes a very different kind of organisation. Some on the left say they do not expect to see another Labour government in their...
Co-op Members Urged to Keep the Party Link
The Keep it Co-op Campaign is urging Co-operative Group members to vote against proposals to sever the group’s 98-year-old relationship with the Co-op Party at this Saturday’s AGM in Manchester....
Compass Gatherings for Radical Hope
Compass is organising a series of post-election ‘gatherings’ around the country to discuss the new political landscape and figure out a way forward....
The ILP’s Story and What it Tells Us
The story of the Independent Labour Party and what it teaches us will be under discussion in Wakefield on Saturday 9 May....
Time to Move On from Trident
Compass has launched a new campaign designed to build a groundswell of support for decommissioning Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons....
Bring Your May Day Banners to Chesterfield
Chesterfield boasts that it hosts ‘the biggest and most prestigious’ May Day gala in the country’ and this year's event on Monday 4 May looks set to rival any from its past....
Remembering Bristol’s Anti-War Hero
Until recently Walter Ayles was almost a forgotten figure in Bristol. But a new group is reminding the city of a man who opposed the First World War from its jingoistic beginning to its bitter end. COLIN THOMAS explains why the group is campaigning for a blue plaque to honour his memory. Bristol’s Remembering...
Hope Not Hate in Final Push Against Farage
Hope not Hate are calling for voluntary and financial support for a ‘final push’ in their campaign to prevent UKIP winning key parliamentary constituencies in the general election....
Labour’s Housing Problem
ERNIE JACQUES argues that Labour’s ‘curate’s egg’ of a manifesto is a long way from being social democratic or balanced. It’s a confused approach exposed most clearly by its housing policy. While there are undoubtably progressive nuggets in the Labour Party’s manifesto, which sets it apart from the nasty party, it is nevertheless remarkably timid...
GMB Slams Tory ‘Right to Buy’ Plans
The GMB union has slammed the Conservative Party’s plans to extend the ‘right to buy’ to housing association tenants as creating a “rich harvest” for private landlords at the expense of the nation’s social housing stock....
Judging Labour’s Manifesto
HARRY BARNES casts his scrutinising eye over the details of Labour’s election manifesto, and concludes that it contains the seeds for a progressive government. At the 2014 Labour Party conference a document entitled National Policy Forum Report 2014 was adopted. My own summary of its contents appeared on my blog and covered 16 separate items....
Chartist Unveils its Anti-Austerity Manifesto
In a period awash with party election manifestoes, the left magazine and campaign group, Chartist, has unveiled its own manifesto for “a properly democratic socialist alternative to austerity”. Chartist’s 2015 manifesto is a revised version of one published by its editorial board in 2007 – “the year before financial capitalism fell in on itself”. “Capitalism...